2012 NFL Regular Season Schedule

Sunday, April 8, 2012

As many (and I mean, many) of outlets have reported, this is
indeed a MOCK schedule that I completely made up for the NFL 2012 Regular
Season. If that's all you need to hear,
that's fine. If you want to hear more,
feel free to keep reading.

Sidenote:Text I received: "Well, you had a good run... Now Roger Goodell is gonna suspend you from watching the first 4 games of the season"

I'm a huge NFL fan.
Yes, I have a life. Yes, I have a
job. In a roundabout way, I was inspired
to create this 2012 MOCK schedule by ESPN's NFL Playoff Machine (http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/machine). I started creating my own playoffs machine,
which contained all 17 weeks of the regular season from 2011. I wanted to have this basic concept completed so that when the actual
2012 schedule was released, I could quickly plug it in my template and then my
playoffs machine would be available to go live.
However, I got a little over halfway done, and decided to switch gears
and see how difficult it would be to create a (somewhat) realistic schedule of
the 2012 NFL Regular Season and see if it would pick up any steam. This started as a small project, but I had NO
idea how much work had to be put in to fit the criteria for an NFL schedule.
Such as:

1. Cowboys @ Giants Week 1

2. Patriots @ Rams in London Week 8 (with Week 9 byes)

3. At least two other games between a divisional repeat game

4. No more than 3 consecutive home/away games (which my
schedule doesn't even follow)

5. Thanksgiving - Dallas home game against an NFC opponent and Detroit home game against
an AFC opponent

6. No Giants/Jets home games on the same day

7. Every team having one, and only one, Thursday game

8. No Oakland
Raiders home games the same day as an Oakland Athletics home game

11. NFL Broadcasting issues with San
Francisco and Oakland
playing same at the same time on the same network

I posted this MOCK schedule Wednesday
night (April 4th) and sent out a few generic tweets to see if anyone would pick
it up. Well, Friday (April 6th) rolled
around and I saw the story posted on ProFootballTalk (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/04/06/league-says-leaked-regular-season-schedule-is-bogus/). Immediately, I checked my blogspot and saw
that I had over 54,000 page views. As of
posting this update, I'm at over 83,000 page views. While it was amazing to
watch it spread like wildfire, it was even more fun to see the excitement that
comes behind the release of a simple schedule.
I know people pointed out the flaws in my schedule left and right
(Steelers/Bengals opening stretch, Bears schedule have all the away games
frontloaded in the schedule, Eagles having a Thursday game before the bye), but
trying to fix any one of those flaws leads to at least 2 or 3 more issues. I also clearly botched the 4:05pm vs 4:15pm
thing, and just put all FOX games as 4:05pm and all CBS games as 4:15pm. With that being said, I don't envy all of the
work that the NFL schedule makers have to do.
If anything, it makes me respect them a lot more. I can't imagine how many drafts they create
and how many times they think everything lines up, only to find one glaring
mistake. I was extremely critical of
some things in the schedule last year (like Philadelphia
traveling to Seattle
for a Thursday game), but this experience taught me that some things just can't
be avoided. I have so many rough drafts
of my work that documents all of the steps from start to finish in making my
schedule. Whenever the NFL Schedule
comes out, I'll be the first one to analyze it just like many of you will. I don't expect the actual schedule to be
anything like this at all.

But as I mentioned earlier, it was
entertaining to see what this fake schedule created around the internet. NFL Message Boards being flooded with topics and
messages analyzing the schedule. Every
fan base feels like their team deserves more PrimeTime games. Everyone said my MNF Schedule was atrocious
(look at last years, I purposely picked less-than-stellar games). People started immediately going down the
schedule and picking wins and losses.
And last but not least, @incarceratedbob jumped on this story, posted it
all over his twitter and blogspot, gave me absolutely no credit or
recognition, and tried to post my own work as his own. He also went as far as
tweeting, "**UPDATED NFL NEWS** NFL decides 2push back original date of
releasing 2012 schedule(Leaked dates are why they moved back announcement)#IBN" While many websites posted the schedule, they
all said it was complete speculation and should be taken with a grain of salt. ProFootballTalk is, without a doubt, my
favorite website and there's never a moment where I don't have it up when I'm
at my computer. If there was ever any
doubt that Incarcerated Bob was a complete and total fraud, this proves
it. Credible websites like
ProFootballTalk immediately squashed the story.
Same goes for a ton of other websites.

With all of that out in the open,
feel free to contact me via my twitter @EaglesStats or email me
eaglesstats@gmail.com. And like I
mentioned earlier, I'll be the first one to analyze the real NFL schedule, once
it's actually available on Tuesday, April 17th at 7:00pm. Thanks for the page views, and I'll actually
go back to publishing Eagles stats when the 2012 NFL season rolls around.

NFL
Thursday Night Football - All 32 teams play one game on a Thursday. NFL Network carries a total of 13 games
from Week 2 - Week 16, excluding Week 8 (MLB World Series) and Week 12
(NBC carries the Thanksgiving primetime game). The NFL really tried to limit teams
from traveling cross-country for Thursday Night Football and it mostly
worked (except for the Buffalo Bills at San Francisco 49ers in Week 10 and
the Oakland Raiders at the Cincinnati Bengals Week 11). Also every team playing on Thursday has
a Sunday game the prior week (except for the San Francisco 49ers, who have their bye
week).

The
New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys will kick off the NFL Season on
Wednesday, September 5th on NBC.
They also lead the league in appearances in primetime with 5 games
each. The Philadelphia Eagles, New
Orleans Saints, Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, New York
Jets, Baltimore Ravens, and Denver Broncos all have 4 appearances.

The
NFL International Series continues with the New England Patriots at the
St. Louis Rams on October 28th in London, England and the New York Jets at the
Buffalo Bills on December 16th in Toronto,
Canada.

Week 1
of the 2012 NFL season is highlighted by NBC Sunday Night Football matchup
of the Houston Texans at the Denver Broncos on September 9th. On Monday, September 10th, ESPN carries
a double header lineup of the Green Bay Packers at the Detroit Lions at
7:00pm and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Oakland Raiders at
10:15pm.

The
Thanksgiving lineup for the 2012 NFL season features the Houston Texans at
the Detroit Lions (12:30pm CBS), the New Orleans Saints at the Dallas
Cowboys (4:15pm FOX), and the New England Patriots at the Tennessee Titans
(8:20pm NBC).

The
ESPN Monday Night Football Game on December 24th featuring the Denver
Broncos at the Oakland Raiders has been moved from 8:30pm to 8:00pm.

As many (and I mean, many) of outlets have reported, this is indeed a MOCK schedule that I completely made up for the NFL 2012 Regular Season. If that's all you need to hear, that's fine. If you want to hear more, feel free to keep reading.

Sidenote: Text I received: "Well, you had a good run... Now Roger Goodell is gonna suspend you from watching the first 4 games of the season"

I'm a huge NFL fan. Yes, I have a life. Yes, I have a job. In a roundabout way, I was inspired to create this 2012 MOCK schedule by ESPN's NFL Playoff Machine (http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/machine). I started creating my own playoffs machine, which contained all 17 weeks of the regular season from 2011. I wanted to have this basic concept completed so that when the actual 2012 schedule was released, I could quickly plug it in my template and then my playoffs machine would be available to go live. However, I got a little over halfway done, and decided to switch gears and see how difficult it would be to create a (somewhat) realistic schedule of the 2012 NFL Regular Season and see if it would pick up any steam. This started as a small project, but I had NO idea how much work had to be put in to fit the criteria for an NFL schedule. Such as:

1. Cowboys @ Giants Week 1

2. Patriots @ Rams in London Week 8 (with Week 9 byes)

3. At least two other games between a divisional repeat game

4. No more than 3 consecutive home/away games (which my schedule doesn't even follow)

5. Thanksgiving - Dallas home game against an NFC opponent and Detroit home game against an AFC opponent

6. No Giants/Jets home games on the same day

7. Every team having one, and only one, Thursday game

8. No Oakland Raiders home games the same day as an Oakland Athletics home game

11. NFL Broadcasting issues with San Francisco and Oakland playing same at the same time on the same network

I posted this schedule Wednesday night (April 4th) and sent out a few generic tweets to see if anyone would pick it up. Well, Friday (April 6th) rolled around and I saw the story posted on ProFootballTalk (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/04/06/league-says-leaked-regular-season-schedule-is-bogus/). Immediately, I checked my blogspot and saw that I had over 54,000 page views. As of posting this update, I'm at over 83,000 page views. While it was amazing to watch it spread like wildfire, it was even more fun to see the excitement that comes behind the release of a simple schedule. I know people pointed out the flaws in my schedule left and right (Steelers/Bengals opening stretch, Bears schedule have all the away games frontloaded in the schedule, Eagles having a Thursday game before the bye), but trying to fix any one of those flaws leads to at least 2 or 3 more issues. I also clearly botched the 4:05pm vs 4:15pm thing, and just put all FOX games as 4:05pm and all CBS games as 4:15pm. With that being said, I don't envy all of the work that the NFL schedule makers have to do. If anything, it makes me respect them a lot more. I can't imagine how many drafts they create and how many times they think everything lines up, only to find one glaring mistake. I was extremely critical of some things in the schedule last year (like Philadelphia traveling to Seattle for a Thursday game), but this experience taught me that some things just can't be avoided. I have so many rough drafts of my work that documents all of the steps from start to finish in making my schedule. Whenever the NFL Schedule comes out, I'll be the first one to analyze it just like many of you will. I don't expect the actual schedule to be anything like this at all.

But as I mentioned earlier, it was entertaining to see what this fake schedule created around the internet. NFL Message Boards being flooded with topics and messages analyzing the schedule. Every fan base feels like their team deserves more PrimeTime games. Everyone said my MNF Schedule was atrocious (look at last years, I purposely picked less-than-stellar games). People started immediately going down the schedule and picking wins and losses. And last but not least, @incarceratedbob jumped on this story, posted it all over his twitter and blogspot, gave me absolutely no credit or recognition, and tried to post my own work as his own. He also went as far as tweeting, "**UPDATED NFL NEWS** NFL decides 2push back original date of releasing 2012 schedule(Leaked dates are why they moved back announcement)#IBN" While many websites posted the schedule, they all said it was complete speculation and should be taken with a grain of salt. ProFootballTalk is, without a doubt, my favorite website and there's never a moment where I don't have it up when I'm at my computer. If there was ever any doubt that Incarcerated Bob was a complete and total fraud, this proves it. Credible websites like ProFootballTalk immediately squashed the story. Same goes for a ton of other websites.

With all of that out in the open, feel free to contact me via my twitter @EaglesStats or email me eaglesstats@gmail.com. And like I mentioned earlier, I'll be the first one to analyze the real NFL schedule, once it's actually available on Tuesday, April 17th at 7:00pm. Thanks for the page views, and I'll actually go back to publishing Eagles stats when the 2012 NFL season rolls around.